Like many of you, I buy a lot of stuff — including electronics equipment — online. But I’ll still go to bricks & mortar stores from time to time, including my local Best Buy. I know that anything I can find inside a Best Buy store (and then some) can be bought online. Yet I still venture out and visit those stores. Why? And what does this have to do with your business? Watch this video for the answers.
I just left Best Buy. This is not a Best Buy commercial nor am I endorsed by Best Buy; they’re not paying me to do it. But it’s really not about Best Buy either. What it’s really about is every time I go in that place, something’s different; something’s new; something’s changed. It’s the latest and greatest. They say in technology, “If it works, it’s obsolete.”
What I learn every time I go in there is that the world keeps moving forward; it keeps advancing. Whether we like it or not, the things that are changing are impacting our lives, and we have to learn to adapt. If we don’t adapt, we’re going to be pretty miserable people.
Let me ask you, are you adapting to your consumer? The consumer’s not staying the same; they’re continuing to change; they have higher levels of expectation; they don’t care about your priorities; they don’t care about your budget; they care about the service that you provide; they care about the engagement that you have with them.
Now, speaking of that, one of the reasons that I will go to a big box store or to a retail store rather than online sometimes is because of the engagement. There’s advantages of Amazon and all the other online processes that you can go through to buy stuff, which I do, but there’s also that personal engagement. Sometimes I need somebody to help me, guide me and answer some questions, so that I don’t feel like I’m making this decision about some new technology or something different that they can help me understand it and if it will meet my needs.
So I depend on the people in these stores sometimes. Do people feel that way about the people in your company? Do they have that personal connection where they want to come there because of the person? The stuff I can buy in there, I venture to say, “Everything I can buy in there I can buy online somewhere.” But I went in there because I needed some reassurance; I needed some questions answered; I needed a little bit of help; I needed somebody to guide me; I needed somebody to help me navigate something I’m not comfortable navigating.
Do people feel that way about your staff, your team? Are you focusing on that with your organization to get that personal touch? It’s still so powerful. This is Gary. Think about it – engagement, change and the future of business – because the way you look at the future of the business will be exactly how your business will look in the future. That’s pretty good. I need to write that down; I don’t think I’ve ever said that before. I like that.
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